


Crimson

by jencsi



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22151806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencsi/pseuds/jencsi
Summary: The blood whisperer had to get her start somewhere.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Crimson

1976 

Julie couldn't remember when her bike suddenly swerved and bumped a raised edge of the sidewalk, but she found herself on the ground, knees scrapping the pavement, hands bracing the fall and also scrapping the concrete. She was stunned but managed to pick herself up and carry herself back to her house, pushing her bike clumsily. Luckily it was only a few houses away. She deposited her twisted bike on the grass in frustration, shuffling as she walked, knees aching, hands burning as she reached her father who was tending to some yard work while her mother was at a dentist appointment. 

“Daddy?” she called to him softly over the rumble of someone’s lawnmower cutting the grass a few yards away. 

Patrick turned and saw her, standing there holding her hands out, blood on them and her knees. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

Julie turned and nodded her head back to her bike with the front handle twisted up where it had hit the cement. 

“It was an accident,” she quickly told him, not wanting him to think someone had pushed her on purpose “I didn’t see the bump in the sidewalk.” 

She lowered her gaze to the ground where the green grass blurred with the tears beginning to form in her eyes. 

“It’s okay,” Patrick soothed her as he walked over, lifting her up and into his arms “let’s get you cleaned up.”

Julie was thankful he was here and not her mother. At only eight years old, Julie knew just how frantic her mother would be if she saw her hurt. She was always worrying, always wanting her to hold her hand when they went out shopping and on the way to school, telling her not to wander too far at the park. She was lucky she was able to ride her bike up and down the block on these nice summer days when it was just her father at home because he let her roam a little farther than her mother did. Plus, her father was a doctor and could take better care of her if she got hurt which was often. 

Patrick carried her into the cool air-conditioned house, all the way to the bathroom down the hallway right off the living room. He set her down on the sink countertop and rummaged around under it for the first aid kit he kept stocked there and in other parts of the house. Julie could not help but stare at her hands and knees, all bloody and red. She could see the tiny scratches from the concrete and how it left a weird line pattern on her skin. She remembered a kid in her class having a nosebleed and it gushed everywhere but her legs and hands seemed to only have some blood smeared on her skin. It was different than when she lost a tooth which only bled for a few minutes or when she cut her finger on some paper and the blood dripped onto the picture she was trying to draw. She didn’t understand why they were all so different. 

Her father dabbed some clear liquid onto a tissue now and stuck it on her cut knees. She felt a searing pain shoot through her leg instantly.

“Ow,” she complained, squirming on the counter in discomfort. 

“I’m sorry slugger,” her father apologized “but this is going to clean them, so it doesn’t get infected and you don’t get sick.” 

He used the liquid three more times, wiping away at the blood that stained her tiny legs and palms of her hands. One at a time, he covered the open wounds with band aids and wrapped them all in a white gauze to keep them secure. Julie watched him, unable to hide her curiosity as she asked, “Daddy why does it hurt?” 

“Because your body has nerves that send a message to your brain when something hurts so you know to take care of it,” Patrick explained, knowing how smart she was and how frequently she stole his medical books to read in her blanket fort in her room. The kid could pick up any subject when given the chance and even though Karen scolded him for letting her see a skeleton diagram in his book at six years old, she memorized the words and terminology she read and could spit it back out to them verbatim at the dinner table, and at school, to her mother’s horror. 

“Why does it bleed?” she asked, touching the bandage on her hand. 

“Because the skin gets broken and it has to bleed before it can heal,” Patrick explained, tapping her knee gently to show her “you have to make sure it stops and make sure you don’t need stitches or the hospital.” 

“How much blood do we have?” Julie asked swinging her legs back and forth as they dangled over the counter. 

“A lot,” Patrick said, not really sure how to describe to her liters and pints of blood. 

“Do you see a lot of blood at the hospital?” she continues to ask. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

“But you fix it right?” she asked, peering up at him with hopeful eyes. 

“Yes,” he lied, sparing her the horrors of what wounds that could not be fixed looked like. 

“Do you have any books about blood?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Patrick said, “but you are not going to be reading them any time soon, you keep getting me in trouble with your mother every time you sneak off with one of those books.”

He tapped her nose with one finger. Julie pouted, crossing her arms against her chest, making a face, ready to protest him with a tantrum or a fit. 

“Come on Doctor Finlay,” Patrick said to her, scooping her back up in his arms before she could scream or yell for the medical book “let’s go get some ice cream.”

They settled in the kitchen, at the table, with ice cream from the freezer. With her hands bandaged, it was awkward for her to hold the spoon and scoop up the ice cream from the bowl so she maneuvered slowly and took her time, thinking over more questions in her head. 

“Can I be a doctor too?” she asked her father now. 

“Sure, you can,” he encouraged “but you have to go to school first.”

“Can I be a teacher like mommy?” Julie asked. 

“Absolutely,” he said. 

“Can I be a teacher and a doctor?” she tried now. 

“Well you’ll be one very busy lady,” Patrick teased her ambitious goals “but yes, you can be both if you want.”

Happy with the answers he gave her, she finished her ice cream in silence. 

That night, when it was time for her to go to bed, Patrick spotted her nestled in her blanket fort in the corner of her room, surrounded by stuffed animals and extra pillows from her bed, reading by flashlight one of his books titled “Internal Medicine; Second edition” He shook his head, knowing she had snuck the book from his office, her curiosity and desire to learn was endless. 

He didn’t want to get her in trouble with Karen, so he carefully slipped into the room and told her to hand the book over. 

“One more chapter daddy, please?” Julie begged with bright round eyes. 

He looked at the page she ended up on, the chapter devoted to the circulatory system and how red and white blood cells worked. He skipped to the next chapter, chapter seven, about emergency room doctors treating blood loss from stab wounds and he promptly closed the book. 

“Later,” he said, “it’s time for bed.”

Pouting, Julie scooted out of her fort and into her bed. She was tucked in proper, stuffed animals wrapped in her arms. When Patrick turned off the light, Julie called back out to him as he started to leave the room “Daddy I already read chapter seven” in a smug tone with a grin that he could not see but knew was there. He sighed, there was no stopping her.


End file.
